


The Book

by Jadesfire



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-30
Updated: 2010-03-30
Packaged: 2017-10-08 12:44:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,028
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/75776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jadesfire/pseuds/Jadesfire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>It was one of the few pacts that neither of them had broken, ever. Mostly.</i> [Tag to 4x17 It's a Terrible life]</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Book

**Author's Note:**

> This was a joint project with Rustydog, as a gift for Donutsweeper, spinning out from her story [Another One For The Book](http://community.livejournal.com/donutville/24789.html). At the bottom of the story is a link to a photo album, because the art and the story can't really be untangled from each other.

There was still a lot of junk left over from their non-lives in the corporate machine, and Dean kept finding the wrong stuff in weird places. First of all it was the suspenders at the bottom of his duffel bag, then it was the bag of what turned out to be decaf coffee spilled all over the carpet of the trunk. He found a tea bag under the silver bullet box, three (empty) hanging files behind the driver's seat of the Impala and a pencil sharpener in his spare pair of boots.

At that point, he was pretty sure that Zachariah was screwing with him.

When they next stopped, somewhere just outside Hastings, Nebraska, he left Sam leafing through newspapers at the nearest diner and went back to the motel room, determined to root everything out once and for all.

It took him about an hour to go through all his things, pulling out pencils and file cards from the most unlikely places and dumping everything in the trash can until it was almost full. He was going to have serious words with Castiel about angelic senses of humor.

He picked up the trash can to put it back by the door, then glanced over at Sam's bag which was sitting on the fuchsia and lime bedspread. They'd had a rule about not going through each other's stuff since Dean was fifteen and Sam had uncovered his porn stash. It wasn't that he'd minded sharing in principle, it was just that Dad would have torn him a new one for letting his eleven-year-old brother get hold of that stuff. Anyway, it was one of the few pacts that neither of them had broken, ever. Mostly.

Desperate times, Dean told himself as he tugged the duffel open. If he found another ballpoint pen buried under a stash of tapes he was going to go stark raving crazy and probably kill Sam and eat him or something.

There wasn't much evidence of the oh-so-funny heavenly practical joke in Sam's bag, it turned out. A couple of pen drives with the Sandover logo on them, which Dean decided not to throw out, just in case they had genuine research stuff on them. The headset that he found tangled in a pair of socks probably wasn't Sam's, and he was fairly sure the weird paperweight thing that didn't look like it could hold down much more than a post-it note also went in the trash.

Sam's bag was lighter without the laptop and his usual weird book collection in it, but Dean could feel something hard and square at the bottom, so he tipped the bag upside down, frowning as the small, black notebook bounced off the bed.

Flicking it open at random, he glanced at a couple of the pages then sat down hard on the bed. More slowly this time, he began turning from entry to entry, smoothing down notes that had been stapled in, and unfolding pieces of paper that had been too big to fit.

This was The Book. Or at least, it was the reincarnation of The Book. He thought it had been lost along with the rest of Dad's stuff.

Sam seemed to have ordered it the same way they had done when they were children, with pages for each letter and neat little entries underneath. Some pages were crammed tight, while others were blank, and it looked like the overflow had gone in the back, along with some pieces that he hadn't managed to stick in yet. The original Book must have fallen to pieces, but it looked like Sam had carefully copied every page, sticking them into this new version. Dean had wondered if Sam kept a journal like Dad did – had done – whatever – but this. This wasn't lore or speculation or rumors.  
This was like reading a diary, of everything they'd seen and killed, and while it was his life too, Dean suddenly felt like he was intruding.

Closing it with more of a snap than he'd intended, Dean quickly dropped it back into the bottom of the bag and stuffed Sam's clothes on top of it. He'd make some excuse about picking it up to move it while it was open and all the stuff falling out or something like that, and okay, if he was at the point where he felt he needed to think of cover stories in advance, he was seriously rattled.

Holding that battered notebook hadn't been like holding The Book again. It didn't smell right, for one thing, not having had Dad's Jack Daniels or ketchup from one of Dean's burgers spilled all over it. And it was too neat and tidy, covered in Sam's girly handwriting, everything at right angles and carefully stuck down rather than the mess that the old book had been.

But it had still brought it all back, the nights looking after Sam while he waited for Dad to get home, or going out on hunts knowing that his father was there to back him up. Learning to fight, to shoot, to look after himself and Sam, learning about all the things that went bump in the night. He couldn't remember a time when he hadn't known about the monsters. Actually, that wasn't true, was it? Thanks to Zachariah, he'd had three weeks where he hadn't known anything about them.

Dean had always thought that ignorance was bliss, that part of his job was to make sure the plain, normal people in their cookie cutter homes didn't have to know anything about the dangers that lurked just outside their safe little world. The Book was everything those people shouldn't have to know, should never have known, just as it was everything he and Sam needed to know. As much as he'd wished it all away, more than once, this was part of who they were, and there was no way he could change that.

Grabbing his car keys, Dean snagged his jacket from the back of a chair and headed for the door. There had to be some stores still open in Hastings. Maybe it was time to get himself a journal.

**Author's Note:**

> See The Book [here](http://picasaweb.google.com/jadesfire2808/TheBook?feat=flashalbum#).


End file.
